In ordinary mapping it's flexible and safe enough to clear any tier maps with most of the random mod combinations. I have completed 40/40 challenges on my own merit in most of the leagues I've played with this build. It has been my go-to build for getting things done while trying whatever current metas just for fun.

The Whispering Ice grants you a unique skill - Icestorm - that scales with your Intelligence stat and uses any support gems in the staff without the need to link them (a free 7-link).

The initial cold damage is converted to fire. This lets us take advantage of Herald of Ash and both Fire and Cold damage modifiers, which makes it easier to find good jewels and takes fewer tree nodes to achieve good DPS.

More details

Spoiler

Icestorm is a high DPS skill. Its true DPS is hard to calculate, and it can vary depending on too many things, so the game only shows average damage per hit. Icestorm hits 10 times per second by producing a small AoE explosion in a random spot within the area of attack. What makes this build really shine is resistance penetration (see below). Resistant enemies, including all serious bosses, take a much larger percentage of our damage than they do from most other builds.

We use a number of ways to increase the damage multiplicatively ('MORE') and additively ('Increased'):

Concentrated Effect is 55% MORE plus 10% Increased damage.

Elemental Focus is 50% MORE plus 10% Increased damage.

Cold To Fire is similar to 30% MORE plus 20% Increased damage.

Cast while Channelling is 10% MORE plus 10% Increased damage. And it sets the casting speed of Icestorm to 0.35 sec which is much faster than it could be cast directly.

Because this build is not a crit one, we use a secondary skill to trigger Elemental Overload's 40% MORE damage bonus. Orb of Storms crits very often.

Ascendant Elementalist has 10% elemental resist penetration, Ascendant Inquisitor adds another 6% to that. Scorching Ray applies a -24% fire resistance debuff on the target which stacks with penetration. Combustion adds another -19% debuff. That brings the total resist penetration of this build to 59% against important targets. Which is equivalent to 59-216% MORE damage depending on the enemy resistances.

How resist penetration works

Spoiler

Penetration can make the target's resists negative, so against an enemy with no Fire resistance it makes their resistance go to -59% resulting in 59% MORE damage. Endgame boss'es 40% elemental resistance becomes -19% and they take 119% of your damage instead of just 60% without it, or 98% MORE damage (119/60 = 1.98). An endgame boss with the extra resistance map mod (80% uncapped fire resistance) would take only 25% of incoming fire damage without penetration. But this build lowers their resistance to 21% and makes them take 79% damage dealt, or 216% MORE (79/25 = 3.16)

Ascendant Inquisitor makes all enemies on the screen take 10% Increased elemental damage which is the same as 10% MORE damage dealt.

Arctic Armour makes you take 13% LESS damage from fire and physical hits while stationary.

Fortify, Tukohama, Chaos Golem, Arctic Armour and Enfeeble combine as they are applied on different stages of the hit damage calculation. For example, when you are tanking an Enfeebled monster, its physical hit on you will deal only (1 - 0.20 - 0.08 - 0.04) * (1 - 0.36) * (1 - 0.13) = 0.38, or 38% of the damage it would deal without Enfeeble, Fortify, Tukohama, Chaos Golem and AA, i.e they hit you for 62% LESS damage.

Blind lowers the enemy's chance to hit you by 50%, making them miss a lot of their hits. The Whispering Ice has an implicit 18% Block mod, letting you block some of the hits too.

Int is always the highest stat, usually followed by Str and Dex. This order of stats makes the Cyclopean Coil belt render you immune to shock and ignite.

Only one link is required in the staff (Scorching Ray - CwC). Icestorm automatically uses all support gems in the staff without the need to link them.

Important: Always 20q your staff before attempting to 6S it. Quality improves your roll by a lot. You can do it a lot cheaper than Vorici with average luck, as long as it's 20q.

Recommended uniques

Spoiler

Astramentis solves all stat requirement issues and provides a huge amount of damage via its high Intelligence (which is also boosted by the staff and belt). The implicit mod can be easily rolled to 16 with a few Blessed Orbs. A low explicit roll (below 90) can be turned into a high roll (over 90) with a Divine orb or two.

Some Talismans or Shaped amulets can do better but they are very rare and expensive.

Cyclopean Coil provides a lot of Int while making you immune to shock and ignite (your stats will normally end up in this hierarchy: Int > Str > Dex). It also adds 1% Increased damage per 5 of your lowest stat. With Astramentis your lowest stat is usually about 200 Dex, so that's 40% Increased damage right there.

Gloves, boots, helmet, chest

Spoiler

Use rares. The most important stat is Int, followed by ES and resists.

Cheap options:

Black Sun Crest boosts your Int (look for at least 13% increased Int). +1 gem level bonus is cool too. This is a DPS option. You gain a bit of damage at the price of some ES. After the nerfs to ES and VP in 3.0-3.1, survivability is more important than raw damage for most of the content. But it's still an option for when you want to kill things faster or can't afford a good Hubris circlet.

Low Int, no resists, and that extra Dex will likely push Dex over Str and you won't be 100% immune to ignite anymore. Extremely cheap starter item.

No Int, no resists, low ES, all mods except one are useless. But that one useful mod means 25% LESS damage from elemental hits. Decent amount of AR is good against physical hits. This is a decent starter item for mapping, but it needs to be replaced before getting into high tiers/endgame.

Rings

Spoiler

Rare rings with 50+ Int and as much ES and resistance as you can find. Ideally, the rings should be corrupted with %Increased Int (see Corruption).

Jewels

Spoiler

You will need 2x Fertile Mind and 1x Brute Force Solution to convert Dex and Str nodes on the way to important things to Int, with their own Int on top of that. Izaro's Turmoil is the easiest to find DPS jewel for this build. Rare jewels with good mods can be even better. Resist/damage jewels can also be used if you are struggling to max the resists.

Pure Talent gives +25 all attributes (which also adds +5% increased damage from Cyclopean Coil) and 5% elemental resist penetration. It's a perfect match for this build. To activate the extra penetration, you must take one of the two Templar starting nodes. Taking the 14% ele dmg node with Path of the Templar Ascendancy does that.

Watcher's Eye has 2-3 random mods that add extra effects to various auras. The mods useful to this build are:

+(20-30) Energy Shield gained for each Enemy Hit while affected by Discipline - a powerful supplement to the capped ES leech, especially for clearing maps with nasty mods. It works wonders against packs of dangerous enemies that could do more damage than 40% of your ES per second (the leech cap).

(1-1.5)% of Damage leeched as Life while affected by Vitality - high DPS option at the price of some tankability. This lets you replace Life Leech with another DPS gem such as Fire Penetration or Controlled Destruction and run Vitality instead of Arctic Armour or Herald of Ash.

Gain (12-18)% of Maximum Mana as Extra Maximum Energy Shield while affected by Clarity - a lot of extra ES. Run lv 1 Clarity for 34 mana instead of Ancestral Call, or use an unset ring.

If you can find a jewel with more than one of these mods, it's awesome. However, such a jewel can cost more than the rest of the gear combined, and it's not really necessary for anything.

Note: Watcher's Eye is optional! It's not required for the build to function, but very nice to have.

With this jewel Vigilant Strike gives a 36 sec Fortify to you and your allies. This is mostly a HC/party option. It's also used against Uber Elder. Against everything else the normal 12 sec Fortify is more than enough and there is no need to use The Vigil.

The leech one is the best because it lets you do No Regen maps easier and provides a very nice clear speed option (see 'Play style and clear speed').

Corruption

Spoiler

New Vaal mods in 3.3 are extremely good.
Rings, amulets and belts can get %Increased Int (+Str or Dex).
Amulets and helmets can get 0.5% fire damage leech.
Jewels can get extra damage or immunity to Maim, Silence, Hinder or Corrupting Blood.

Do not corrupt the staff. 18% block is an excellent defensive mod, and there are no good Vaal mods for staves that would help this build.

Uber Lab farming is a good way to add quality to your gems. You can often find treasure chests filled with random quality gems to vendor for the GCP recipe.

If you are not into Uber Lab farming, then:
- for non-DPS gems, level the gem to 20 or buy an uncorrupted 20/0 gem, vendor the gem + Gemcutter Prism to get a 1/20 gem, and then level that one. You can get them to lv 17-18 in no time, and that is enough for them to be efficient;
- for the DPS gems, level 2 copies at the same time (or buy 20/0) and then vendor one copy with GCP and re-level it in the swap weapon.

Sockets

Spoiler

No link higher than 4L is required for any targets. However, 5L chest is very nice to have.

Weapon

Spoiler

6S RRBBBB: Cold To Fire, Life Leech, Scorching Ray - Cast While Channelling, Concentrated Effect, Spell Cascade. It can work even with 4S (without CE and SC) during leveling, but at lower damage.

Scorching Ray must be linked to CwC. No other links are required, Icestorm automatically uses all support gems in the staff.

For bosses swap Spell Cascade for Elemental Focus.

If you have the leech enchantment on your boots, you can also use Fire Penetration instead of Life Leech for higher clear speed at the price of some safety. Don't try this without the boot enchantment, or against bosses.

You can simply carry 2 staves: one with Spell Cascade for trash clearing and one with Elemental Focus for the bosses and rogues/rares.

The 6th socket can also be used for Item Rarity for better loot (but lower DPS), if the map is easy enough.

Do not level Scorching Ray! You don't have a reliable source of mana to afford the cost of high level SR, and its damage is irrelevant compared to Icestorm.

If you manage to obtain an amulet or helmet with the fire damage leech corruption, you can replace Life Leech with Fire Penetration in the boss staff too. 0.5% leech will be enough even against most bosses as long as your overall damage is good (i.e. your gems are leveled and your items have the recommended amount of Int). Important: 0.5% leech is NOT SAFE against endgame bosses where the target moves a lot or you have very little time to cast, such as Uber Elder, Eradicator or Hydra. Uber Elder in particular is MUCH safer with Life Leech.

Important: CWDT needs to be lv 1 and BL must be lv 4 or lower, do not level these gems! CoH can be any level, 20/20 is highly recommended. Enfeeble must be lv 6 or higher, do level it. This setup will not work with low level curse gems or high level CWDT/BL. You want this link to trigger as often as possible, so CWDT must stay at lv 1. BL higher than lv 4 will be too high level for it to trigger. Enfeeble lower than lv 6 will get triggered by CWDT directly instead of getting procced by BL, and will thus only target a small area and lose the increased effect from CoH.

Optional: If you are using a 5L chest, add Blind to that CWDT link. For 6L add Combustion.

Place in any free sockets: DisciplineHerald of AshArctic Armour
- but make sure not to link them with Arcane Surge (it increases mana reservation).

Optional: Vaal Righteous Fire instead of Ancestral Call. This is an extra DPS option, it gives you a 39% MORE damage boost for 5.5 sec when you need to kill something quickly. However, Vigilant Strike require a much more precise targeting without Ancestral Call.

How to off-color sockets?

Spoiler

The easiest way to get 3 or all 4 R/G sockets in the Int gear is to use Jewellers instead of Chromatics. Using Vorici, keep adding a new socket and removing it until you get the color you want. Adding a socket doesn't change the colors of the existing sockets.

Auras

Spoiler

Discipline, Arctic Armour, Herald of Ash.

Purity auras (of Fire, Ice, Lightning or Elements) can be used when necessary instead of AA and/or HoA, for Elemental Weakness maps, +ele dmg maps, or bosses that deal extreme amounts of damage of a particular element.

Flasks

Spoiler

This build doesn't depend on flasks to function, so the choice is entirely up to you. However, a Staunching flask is highly recommended for mapping.

This is my everyday mapping set:

Two high speed Quicksilvers make trash clearing a lot faster.

A Basalt flask for an occasional heavy hitting boss. Heat suffix for an occasional freeze and heavy chill (mostly for the strongboxes). Chemist prefix allows it to be used twice without recharging.

Getting rid of nasty curses is always a good idea.

For the Staunching and Warding flasks, my choice is the Chemist's Sulphur variety, because it gives additional DPS and can be used 4 times without recharging.

Play style and clear speed

Spoiler

Run around at high speed with Quicksilver flasks and Flame Dash. Use other flasks as needed.

See a pack of mobs, hit them with Scorching Ray + Icestorm. If they are not dead yet, pop Orb of Storms and cast more Icestorms. If they are nasty, hit something with Vigilant Strike to get a 12 sec Fortify and tank them.

While tanking, move as little as possible. Arctic Armour and Tukohama only work while stationary. But dodge potential 1-shots unless you are confident that you can survive them.

If you need to kill trash faster, you can swap Enfeeble for Flammability and trade a bit of safety for damage.

Another option is swapping Life Leech for Fire Penetration. This further increases clear speed while lowering you tankability. ONLY if you have the leech enchantment on your boots. And ONLY for trash clearing. Do not take Life Leech out of your boss setup.

This is not a 'clear speed' build, it's a 'do everything' build. It's designed primarily for facerolling the endgame content. It can't use fast movement skills or do damage just by moving. But it can clear any maps with virtually any mods reasonably fast, very safely and without skipping or leaving any mobs behind. Constantly mapping in high tiers with massive item quantity and pack size eliminates the map drop issue, the pool of red maps always grows.

Clear speed with this build is achieved by using 30% ms boots, high speed Quicksilver flasks and gem swaps.

Dealing with map mods

Spoiler

This build can do any map mods and virtually any combinations of them. Notable cases:

Elemental Reflect, Shocking Ground, Chilling Ground
Just ignore it.

Elemental Weakness
Swap Chaos Golem for Purity of Elements and use it instead of Arctic Armour and/or Herald of Ash (depending on the map). Or have a swap ring with a ton of extra resistances. Or just carry a couple of flasks like this one:

No Leech
This is the single worst mod for this build. It's very rare and it's usually worth rerolling the map. If you really can't avoid it, DO NOT TANK, just range kill everything. Bring a mana flask or make Scorching Ray free to cast with Praxis or a good Elreon ring.

If you have the Watcher's Eye, it will let you tank even in most of the No Leech maps.

Reduced Life Recovery
This affects your leech amount (but not the 40%/sec leech cap). If your DPS is not high enough to reach the cap with this mod, be careful and don't facetank more than you can outleech. Once you are easily outleeching everything and not seeing any difference, you can ignore this mod.

No Regen
Bring a slow acting mana flask:

or use Praxis/Elreon ring to make Scorching Ray free to cast. If you have the leech enchantment on your boots, you don't need to worry about it as long as you keep killing trash or boss adds.

My gear and stats in the Delve league

Spoiler

In this league I went with a more defensive setup with 2 curses for the deep delves. The sheer amount of xp in the delves with very few deaths resulted in lv 98 by the time all challenges were done. This is a massive overkill for everything but Uber Elder, Aul and depth 500+ delves with nasty mods. All other targets can be done easily with much cheaper gear.

Scion doesn't get any good leveling spells. You need Freezing Pulse. If this is your first character in a new league, just make a Witch first and kill Hillock, take Freezing Pulse as your reward, and stash it for your Scion together with Arcane Surge (from the chest in Twilight Strand).

Uniques to trivialize leveling

Spoiler

Lv 1-39

Spoiler

Wear any self-found gear with Life and Armour. Use dual wands or wand + spirit shield for max spell damage.

Start
Your starting skill is Spectral Throw. Use it to kill Hillock and throw it away. Take the gems stashed by the starting Witch. You will be using Freezing Pulse until lv 33-39. Buy a Paua amulet from Nessa for mana regen.

Submerged Passage
Take Decoy Totem as your reward from Tarkleigh and use it to distract the bosses. Buy Frost Bomb from Nessa and use it together with Freezing Pulse, it's awesome at low levels.

Axiom Prison
Go to town, take Added Lightning Damage as your reward from Nessa and support Freezing Pulse with it. If you have a 3L, keep Arcane Surge too. If you have Tabula Rasa, buy Added Cold Damage from Nessa too.

Skill tree:
- down from the start in the tree
- Fire, Cold, Lightning Resistance
- Sentinel
- continue into the Witch area using Int nodes
- Deep Wisdom
- Heart and Soul
- Occultist's Dominion
- Cruel Preparation
- down to the Duelist area
- socket between Scion and Duelist
- Wisdom of the GladeLv 38 tree

Act 2
Go East and kill Fidelitas. Take Herald of Ice as your reward from Greust. Kill Kraityn.

Go West and kill Alira. Open the passage and claim your skill point reward from Bestel. Kill the Weaver. Take Concentrated Effect as your reward from Silk. Kill Oak and claim your skill point reward from Eramir.

Lv 18
Start using Herald of Ice. If you have a Tabula Rasa, buy Controlled Destruction and Faster Casting from Yeena and add to Freezing Pulse. Start leveling Herald of Ash, Concentrated Effect, Elemental Focus in any free sockets or the second weapon set (don't use them, just level).

Act 3
After completing the Crematorium quest, buy Discipline from Clarissa and start leveling it (don't use it yet).

If you find a 4L item (and don't have Tabula Rasa), support Freezing Pulse with Added Cold Damage or Controlled Destruction.

Help Siosa in the Library. He will sell you any gems you need.

Don't bother with the Normal Lab yet. It's not easy with Freezing Pulse at this level, and Scion doesn't get anything important from it.

Act 4
Take the Chaos Golem as your reward from Oyun for killing Voll. Don't forget to free Deshret.

Lv 33
If you already have the staff and are able to equip it, you can start using it already. Self-cast Icestorm is already very strong at this point, especially if you have a Fertile Mind jewel for the socket leading to the Duelist area. Support gems: Mana Leech, Concentrated Effect, Elemental Focus, Controlled Destruction (4S), Cold to Fire (5S). Mana may be a bit tight, bring some mana flasks.

Or you can continue with Freezing Pulse until lv 39.

When you kill Kaom and Daresso, you will be able to buy Cast While Channelling, CWDT and Enfeeble from Petarus and Vanya.

If you know that you are not going to have the staff at these levels, skip the lower branch of the skill tree (leading to Vaal Pact) and go with whatever makes FP more powerful.

Once you reach Act 6, you can farm The Incantation card in A6 Western Forest.

The Big Switch (lv 39)

Spoiler

Take Vaal Pact. Put Fertile Mind into the socket between Scion and Duelist. Int is very important for Icestorm. If you don't convert the Dex nodes to Int with Fertile Mind, your damage will be much lower than you'd like and you'll be about 6 levels behind the good schedule.

Your staff should be at least 4S (BBRR): Scorching Ray - CwC, Life Leech, Cold To Fire. Buy a lv 1 Scorching Ray from Siosa and DO NOT LEVEL THIS GEM. Only SR - CwC need to be linked. No other links are needed (see Sockets). If you have a 5S staff, add Concentrated Effect. For 6S add Elemental Focus.

If you don't have Astramentis, get a rare amulet with 50+ total Int between different mods. Use Int rings with resists. Chest/gloves/boots/helmet with Int, Life and maybe some resists and AR (not necessary but nice). It is VERY important to have Int on everything! Your damage and leech amount scales from Int.

Cheap uniques good for leveling with WI:

Buy CWDT lv 1 and DO NOT LEVEL THIS GEM. Link it with Enfeeble and level that to lv 5. After that, if you have a 4L item, use CWDT lv 1 - Ball Lightning lv 4 - Curse on Hit (level it) - Enfeeble (level it). But if you don't have a 4L then keep Enfeeble at lv 5 and linked with CWDT lv 1. See the Sockets section for the explanation why these levels.

Auras: Discipline, Herald of Ash, Arctic Armour.

Use Orb of Storms to trigger Elemental Overload (it crits very often). Level it. Link Arcane Surge with Orb of Storms and keep it at the level where it gets triggered by the mana cost of your current level Orb. If you have a 3L for it, add Blind to this link.

It's a good idea to level to 70 before you kill Kitava and lose another 30% resistances. This way you can switch to CI gear right there.

Lv 70-91

Spoiler

As soon as you are able to use endgame gear, switch to CI:
- refund Life nodes: Discipline and Training, Blood Siphon, Heart and Soul
- take 2 Int nodes on the path between Heart of Flame and Avatar of Fire
- refund Cruel Preparation
- take Chaos Inoculation
- Ghost Reaver
- Arcane Focus
- Nullification
- Foresight

Wear your Int/ES gear. Do the Merciless lab (take Ascendant Inquisitor). Head into the maps and work on the final tree:
- Path of the Savant
- four fat ES nodes below Deep Wisdom
- Templar area socket (Brute Force Solution)
- Witch area socket (rare or Izaro)
- Unnatural Calm
- socket between Witch and Templar (rare or Izaro)
- Shadow area socket (rare or Izaro)Lv 91 tree

Whenever you do the Uber Lab (it's possible even at lv 70 with semi-decent gear), take Path of the Templar and the lone 14% ele dmg node at the Templar start (it will be used with Pure Talent when you get that jewel).

The build is complete at lv 91 and is capable of killing everything in the game, as long as you are geared appropriately.

High level options

Spoiler

- socket near Avatar of Fire
- 30 Dex or Str node near Elemental Overload, and switch the jewel in the above socket to Fertile Mind or Brute Force Solution
- a similar socket near CI with nearby 30 Str/Dex
- Nullification, Faith and Steel, ES nodes near Deep Wisdom - use an optimal combination of them depending on your level and resistances
- Divine Fervour, Art of the Gladiator - when you have extra points to spend
- Retribution, Trickery - those can be refunded to grab extra jewel sockets if you have very good jewels that add more than 40-45 value (see Gear-Jewels)

You always need a staunching flask. If you have less than 7k ES you may also want to bring a Basalt flask for Izaro. The rest should be Quicksilvers, preferably with 3 uses (extra charges or reduced charges). High speed Quicksilver flasks let you run through most traps without taking much damage.

Izaro deals pure physical damage. Depending on the weapon he has on that day, he can use Leap Slam, Reave, Shield Charge, Sunder and Voll Slam. The Goddess on Izaro's back has a fire based ranged Mortar attack. Depending on the day, Izaro can get buffed with increased damage dealt, reduced damage taken, extra elemental damage, chance to shock/freeze/ignite, elemental resistances, attack and movement speed, curses on you, or various adds.

Stand near Izaro's circle while he is arriving. Pre-cast Icestorm just outside of the circle (you cannot cast on Izaro until he attacks). With a 5 sec Icestorm duration you can pre-stack 14 Icestorms there that will instantly hit Izaro the moment he goes active. Just before he does, cast Orb of Storms and pop the Sulphur flask to deal even more damage. DO NOT MOVE. AA and Tukohama only protect you while stationary. When Izaro leaps or walks up to you, hit him with Vigilant Strike to get Fortify.

In the first two trials he often stays around for 10-15 sec despite you dealing enough damage to beat him almost immediately.

In the final fight Izaro should be dead within 2-3 seconds (at lv 78+ with 1400+ Int and 20/20 gems) if you are doing it solo, but it can take longer if you are carrying others. Izaro has one extra ability in the final fight: a green circle glows around you and teleports you to a random trap 3 sec later. Simply dash to another spot and continue casting on Izaro.

The only real danger is when Izaro has charges. His damage can increase by 300% and he can pack quite a punch. If you have less than 6k ES, do not let him get fully charged. Everything else should be fine with 3.5-4k ES (maybe even less). For the full charge Izaro you really want to bring a Basalt flask to mitigate his first attack.

If you are doing this for the first time, at a low level (lower than 83) and with crappy gear (less than 3k ES) - do not let Izaro get any buffs. See the wiki for more information about preventing Izaro buffs vs getting more keys.

Hydra constantly moves and wants to attack from range. She has 3 physical bow attacks with 50% of the damage converted to cold:
1) Barrage
2) Rain of Arrows
3) a massive single projectile Forked Shot preceded by a very slow animation

Balls of cold damage fly across the room in straight lines. There are safe areas between those lines, after doing this fight a few times you should be able to find them easily. The balls also don't reach the opposite end of the arena, so there is more safe space at the very edge (see what I mean in the video above).

Every now and then the Hydra disappears and adds spawn. The adds drop small Vortexes where they die. After 5 sec, Hydra re-appears in a random spot in the room and starts attacking again.

Flasks:

Optional aura:
Replace Herald of Ash with Purity of Ice. If you have a white socket for Herald you can swap it directly, otherwise you can swap Blind for Purity.

Strategy:
Run towards Hydra along the bottom of the arena. Stop at the end of the platform with the last single turret (see the video). It's a safe spot. Pop Orb and start casting Icestorm on the Hydra. Follow her with the cursor and keep casting on her. She will try to run off-screen, but won't go too far, you can still target her. When she does the animation for one of her attacks, pop a Sapphire or Basalt flask. Stand still (for AA and Tukohama protection).

Most of the time you will end up 'dueling the legs of Hydra' when she's running back and forth along the very top of your screen. When she disappears and the adds come, cast some Icestorms near you to kill them as they run to you.

Minotaur has 4 physical attacks:
1. Regular mace hit with 30% damage converted to Lightning.
2. Mace Sweep with 30% damage converted to Lightning, often causes shock.
3. Burrow: he goes underground and pops up at the targeted location dealing high damage. This is only used against targets outside of his melee range.
4. Mace Slam: higher damage hit creating a circular area of falling rocks (similar to Firestorm but physical damage).

There are several pairs of Tesla coils in the room. They activate as Minotaur takes damage and create lightning barriers that slow and shock you if you touch them. Small stone golem adds also spawn, helping to refill your flasks and trigger extra leech.

Flasks:

Strategy:
Enter the arena, take the lower path, stop at the Tesla coils at the bottom. Pre-cast some Icestorms near the Minotaur, then run straight right, just below his starting position. This way you avoid his Ground Roll attack if he chooses to open with it. Pop a Basalt flask, cast Orb of Storms and stand still. AA and Tukohama only work when not moving. Hit the Minotaur with VS for Fortify.

When he is about to die, Flame Dash out of the falling rock area to avoid getting hit after Mino is dead.

Phoenix deals physical damage with added fire damage (similar to Anger). He has 2 attacks:
1. Cyclone.
2. Firebomb: a massive Fire explosion with a -50% Fire resistance debuff (additive with your total Fire resist; this is not resist penetration).

For each 10% life lost by Phoenix, you get a -1% max Fire resist debuff, and a small phoenix add spawns that shoots fire damage projectiles. These adds respawn 5 sec after getting killed. Small fire tornadoes also spawn and roam around randomly dealing fire damage.

Flasks:

Additional aura:
Replace Herald of Ash with Purity of Fire.

Strategy:
Pre-cast a couple of Icestorms on the center of the room, move there to activate the fight, Flame Dash back to the corner by the door, pop Orb of Storms and start casting Icestorm just in front of yourself. Stand still, AA will not protect you while moving. Phoenix will Cyclone to you. Hit him with Vigilant Strike. When he starts the Firebomb animation, pop a Ruby flask to counter it.

Every 25% Chimera disappears and 4 waves of adds come from the 3 gates in the room (in random order):
a) Dogs: melee, cause bleeding;
b) Goats: use Leap Slam;
c) Snakes: ranged, shoot poisonous projectiles, chaos damage.
With the final wave of each add phase, a mini-boss comes from the right gate.

When the adds are dead, Chimera re-appears in the center of the room, attacks for 1-2 sec, then disappear again, and smoke clouds fill the room. Chimera hides in a random smoke cloud and must be found by running though that cloud. You get hit with his default melee attack every 1 sec until you find him.

Flasks:

The Staunching flask is for the adds, and the rest are for the smoke phase.

Strategy:
Run to the right corner of the room, pop Orb of Storms and cast Icestorms on yourself. Chimera will Flicker Strike to you. Hit him with Vigilant Strike to get Fortify and keep casting on him.

When the adds spawn kill them at the right gate (where you are). Cast Icestorms on yourself, pop Orb, use VS for Fortify. You will quickly kill the adds that come out of that gate, and then the ones that come from the top gate. The ones that come from the left gate will stay there and won't come. After the mini-boss is dead, pop a portal somewhere in the right end of the room (but out of your way when killing adds). Cast Icestorm on the center of the room and Flame Dash there. The adds from the left gate will come to you. Try to get a fresh Fortify before finishing them off.

When the last add dies, cast Icestorm near the center. Chimera will re-appear near you, hit you a couple times and start the smoke phase. When you see Chimera, pop Basalt and Quicksilver flasks and run through the very middle of every smoke cloud. You must bump into the hiding Chimera, the detection radius is very small.

If you don't find Chimera after running through half of the room, run into the portal to get full ES and eliminate the risk of dying to the smoke hits. When you find the Chimera, run back to the right gate, cast Orb of Storms and start casting Icestorm on yourself. He will Flicker to you.

Before getting to the Shaper, you have to defeat 4 random bosses. Always bring a Staunching flask if you don't want to lose portals to a random encounter with Rigwald, Dominus or corrupting/bleeding trash.

After dealing with them you can enter the portal to the Shaper's arena. Zana fights on your side there. You get to fight the Shaper 3 times: to 50%, to 25%, and finally to the kill. At 50% and 25% he banishes you and Zana to a large maze area filled with random trash, and you need to find your way from the bottom to the top of the maze and kill a mini-boss (the boss of the Laboratory map) that uses Frost Bolt, Vortex, Spectral Throw and a special 'Vortex Slam' (with a very slow animation). Killing the mini-boss opens a portal back to the arena. The Shaper slowly regenerates life while you are getting back to him. He gains a new dangerous ability in each fight.

The Shaper has 4 attacks:
1. Melee physical hit. Weak.
2. Golden beam of fire + cold + lightning damage. Preceded by a short animation. Targets your location at the start of the animation.
3. Barrage of golden projectiles that deal high cold damage with 25% resist penetration. 3 barrages of 3 balls are fired, each targeting your location at the time. Only used when he cannot hit you with melee, or when there is another target in the room (i.e. you are not alone).
4. Teleport Slam: a massive physical AoE hit. Preceded by a slow animation. Targets your location in the middle of the animation.

After each attack, the Shaper randomly decides to use another attack or do one of the special abilities:
1. Portal: the Shaper becomes invulnerable for 25 sec and opens a portal that spawns random adds that attack Zana. If they manage to get Zana to 0 hp, she goes to 'rest' at the bottom of the map for 30 sec.
2. Bullet Hell: the Shaper becomes invulnerable, teleports randomly 16 times between 8 spots at the edges of the room and fires 12-projectile novas at each spot. They are the same exact projectiles as in the Barrage attack, but with a purple graphic. If Zana is not 'resting', she creates a red protective bubble in the middle of the arena to shield you from the projectiles. After firing the last nova, the Shaper immediately initiates his next attack from that random location (which can be off-screen!) while the projectiles are still flying around. This is the most dangerous moment of the fight. This ability is used only in the 2nd and 3rd fight.
3. Shadow Clone: a slightly faded mirror image of the Shaper pops for 10 sec and attacks you randomly with the melee hits, the beam or the ball barrage. It is invulnerable and cannot be leeched from, but does much less damage than the Shaper himself. This ability is used only in the 3rd fight.

Balls of ice spawn randomly around the room. If they see you (their awareness radius is about 1/3 of the screen) they start chasing you. If they touch you, they turn into a Vortex on the ground that deals cold damage over time and chills. These balls spawn more frequently in the 2nd and 3rd fight.

Flasks:

Basalt to mitigate the Slam. Make sure your Basalt flask can be used twice without recharging (i.e. has 23%+ Reduced Charges Used). Staunching for Dominus, Rigwald and random trash that can cause bleeding. Quicksilver is used at the end of the red bubble phase to dodge the next attack.

If you have The Wise Oak, use it as combo together with Ruby. If your uncapped fire resistance is the highest, you can use a Sulphur flask instead of Ruby for more damage.

Strategy:
Walk up to the Shaper and pre-cast Icestorms on him while he is talking. When he is about to finish his speech, cast Orb of Storms. If you have Vaal Righteous Fire up, pop it just before Orb. If you have The Wise Oak, pop it as well. If your top resist is not fire, pop a Ruby flask to make it your top resist. This will ensure that he takes maximum damage. Then act depending on what he chooses to do.

Melee: keep casting.

Beam: keep casting. If you are losing ES too fast (i.e. your DPS is a bit low and you don't have the Watcher's Eye) then move out of the beam but stay near the Shaper to prevent him from using the Ball Barrage.

Slam: use Basalt and The Wise Oak + Sulphur/Ruby if you have it and keep casting on yourself. Stand still! AA and Tukohama won't protect you when not stationary. If the Shaper starts the Slam animation while you are moving, do not tank that, Flame Dash away.

Portal: cast some Icestorms on Zana. When she is safe, start shifting your target towards the portal and moving to it. You need to end up standing at the portal and casting on yourself. When Zana begins closing the portal, hit it with VS, pop a fresh Orb and keep casting.

Bullet Hell: if there are any ice balls around, run to them quickly and turn them into Vortexes, then stand in the red bubble. You have about 5 sec before the purple projectiles start to fly. It is absolutely paramount to avoid ruining the space within the bubble with the Vortexes. If an ice ball comes at you during the bubble phase, you have a small amount of safe space inside the bubble to move and make the ball land on the edge of it.

The Shaper teleports around firing the projectile novas 16 times. Get used to counting the explosions (4 explosions x 4 times), and be ready for his next attack. He often stops outside of the screen! You must dodge his first attack, while the last of the purple projectiles are still flying around. Pop the Quicksilver flask if you have it, get near him, pop Orb of Storms and start casting on him. If his next attack is the Ball Barrage (3 series of 3 golden balls) then you need to dodge them, move 3 times between Icestorm casts on him. If he uses another attack, stay where you are and keep casting on him (or on yourself if he goes for the Slam).

Clone: ignore it, keep casting on the Shaper and pay attention to his next move. If the Shaper opens the Portal while the clone is still around, you need to start casting on the adds ASAP, for a source of leech.

If the ice balls come while you are tanking the Shaper, adjust your position slightly to get out of them, but don't lose melee contact with the Shaper, or he may fire the Ball Barrage. Never let the ice balls land in the middle of the room, where the red bubble spawns (unless they come during the bubble phase; see above).

If you die and have to re-enter the arena, use the same tactic as after the red bubble phase: pop Quicksilver and dodge the ball barrage, otherwise just cast on the Shaper.

Don't forget to pop fresh Orb of Storms near the Shaper when he moves.

The map has 3 boss encounters, each preceded by a maze filled with trash and totems. The trash consists of the Vaal Fallen (slow moving melee dudes), Spark-casting skeletons, Chaos projectile-shooting Vaal Constructs, and fast moving snakes that cause bleeding.

In the regular version of the map (The Apex of Sacrifice) everything is lv 70 and trivial and can be done with the regular mapping setup.

In the Uber version of the map (The Alluring Abyss) everything is lv 80 but has a LOT more hp and deals DOUBLE damage (that's double from lv 80, or something like 5x more damage than in the lv 70 version).

Additional aura:
Purity of Fire (replace Herald of Ash)

Flasks for the Alluring Abyss:

Sapphire and Topaz for the Vaals. Ruby flasks of Warding to deal with Atziri's Flameblasts and reflected Enfeeble. The Wise Oak for more damage (fire is your top resist with Purity of Fire). And the Staunching flask must always be with you.

Vaals

Spoiler

There are two Vessels of the Vaal in the room. They are modified versions of the Act 2 (and the Maze map) boss Vaal Oversoul. Once activated, they can do 6 things:

1. Summon adds.
2. Go underground for 3 sec and possibly move to you.
3. Shoot lasers 3 times in a row. Deals moderate Lightning damage and always shocks (but you are immune to shock with Cyclopean Coil).
4. Shoot several Ball Lightnings in an arc formation. Deals small amount of Lightning damage at close range, but the damage increases significantly with distance (reverse Point Blank).
5. Vaal Smash: a massive physical hit with 50% damage converted to Fire. This is the single hardest hit in the game (to my knowlegde). Preceded by a slow animation. Only used in melee range.
6. Cast a very concentrated Icestorm on you. Oh, the irony!

Killing one Vaal makes the other one 'enrage': it grows in size and becomes twice as fast, but doesn't do any higher damage.

Strategy:
Enter the room, go straight to the right Vaal and stand near it for at least 5 sec. This will ensure that the second Vaal will activate 5 sec after the first one, and you will have that extra time to kill the first one before dealing with the second one.

When the first Vaal starts emerging from the black cloud, start casting Icestorms on it. When it's fully visible, cast Orb of Storms, pop The Wise Oak and the Sulphur flask.

The first Vaal will start summoning adds. Most of the time it will be dead within 5 sec. However, sometimes (rarely) it can go under before dying. You won't need to worry about it either way, it will die quickly after it resurfaces.

When the first Vaal starts taking damage, recast Orb of Storms and start casting Icestorm on the second Vaal. Pop the flasks again. It will also start by summoning adds, but since you didn't have 5 sec to pre-cast on it, it will not be dead within 5 sec. After the add summoning sequence it will go under for 3 sec and re-surface near you.

Pop a fresh Orb and start casting Icestorm on yourself (it will also kill off the adds). When the Vaal emerges from the floor, pop Sapphire, Topaz, Sulphur and the Wise Oak and keep casting Icestorm, but look what's at the end of the appendage that points at you:
a) A sharp end: it will shoot the Laser or Ball Lightnings. Ignore it, keep casting.
b) A ball: Flame Dash ASAP! This is either the Vaal Smash 1-shot attack or the concentrated Icestorm (you won't be able to see it because of your own Icestorms but your ES will start going down).

Trio

Spoiler

There are 3 mini-bosses standing in the left corner of the room.

1. A'alai ('the Archer bitch') deals pure physical damage. Most of the time she uses Rain of Arrows, but sometimes casts a very dangerous 'Rain of Spikes' (which is actually Firestorm with physical damage instead of fire and a different graphic).

When any of the 3 bosses die, a large black cloud spills out from their corpse that deals massive physical damage over time and remains on the floor until the end of the fight, and the remaining bosses instantly heal to 100% hp. When A'alai or Y'ara'az dies, adds start spawning from their corpse ('whip' and 'machine gun' demons). After killing 2 bosses, the last remaining boss grows in size and starts using much more dangerous versions of their abilities.

Strategy:
Enter the room, walk up to the pillar above you (it's just outside the boss trigger radius) and pre-cast Icestorms on the archer for 6 sec, cast Orb of Storms and step forward to activate the bosses.

Kill the Archer first. Watch what she is doing. If she raises her arm - that's the Rain of Spikes animation, Flame Dash ASAP! Dodge the other 2 bosses and keep casting on the archer until she is dead.

The Dual Striker should be the 2nd to die. Lure him to some corner, pop Ruby flask and tank him, hit him with VS to get Fortify.

Once the Dual Striker is dead, get away from his corpse (the black cloud will spread from it shortly), pop a fresh Orb, kill adds and faceroll the Cycloner. Use the Staunching flask to avoid getting bled.

Atziri reflects 2% of all damage and curses when hit with them (she will not reflect Blasphemy curses though, since Blasphemy does not hit).

At 75%, 50% and 25% Atziri fades away and 4 statues fade in. One casts the red Stormcalls, one casts Flameblast, one uses Spear Throw, and the last one holds up the Mirror that reflects 100% damage back at you. Killing any statue makes them all die, and Atziri re-appears in the center of the room.

At random times during the encounter, Atziri goes into the bubble in the center of the room for 30 sec, and slow moving adds spawn at the edges of the room and walk towards Atziri. If they reach Atziri, she absorbs them and heals herself.

Unlike most other bosses, you cannot cull Atziri until she finishes all 3 Statue phases. She doesn't have a lot of hp, you can bring her all the way to 0 easily, but she will just go into the next phase and restore herself to 25-50-75% after that.

Gem/aura swap:
Replace Herald of Ash with Purity of Fire.

Strategy:
Enter the room, move forward to the next floor tile (it's just outside of the boss trigger radius) and pre-cast Icestorms on Atziri for 6 sec. Cast Orb of Storms and move forward to start the fight. Stop, cast Icestorm on Atziri and act depending on what she chooses to do:

1. Flameblast: do not move (AA only works when stationary), use Ruby flask.
2. Spear Throw: use Staunching flask.
3. Stormcalls: you can keep casting for 2 more sec, then dodge the red/yellow circles if there are any on you.
4. Empowered Twin Flameblasts: get out of them ASAP. Use Flame Dash. You can also bring a Quicksilver flask instead of one of the Rubies.

Bubble: stand in the center of the room with Atziri and cast Icestorms on yourself. When the last of the adds are about to reach you, hit Atziri with Vigilant Strike to get Fortify, cast Orb of Storms, pop a Ruby flask and keep casting Icestorms.

Statues: Target any statue and cast Icestorm on it as it fades in. When they are fully visible, cast Orb of Storms and use Ruby and Sulphur flasks (and The Wise Oak if you have it). You need maximum damage to kill the statue quickly. Do not move (AA and Tukohama only work when not moving). You may eat the Flameblast and Spear Throw, but as long as you are stationary you'll be fine. With enough DPS, the statues will die before they finish casting Flameblast and Storm Call. If they do finish casting, after 2-3 sec you need to move to dodge the Stormcalls, if there are any on you. They may be a bit hard to see at first with the Icestorm ground, but it's easy to get used to looking for the red circles there.

Esh
Use Purity of Lightning (swap Chaos Golem for it and run it instead of AA). He teleports around, chase him. He uses Shock Nova that deals more damage on the outside than on the inside, stay near Esh. He spawns lightning balls that move away from him and back to him. Don't stand near those.

Tul
Use Purity of Ice instead if AA. He does a cold version of Incinerate, don't stand in it.

Uul-Netol and Chayula
Swap Enfeeble for Flammability. Use Quicksilver flasks for speed and Sulphur for damage (my recommended mapping flasks work well here; see Flasks). Don't stop for longer than it takes to cast Icestorm on each pack. Leave all loot to pick up after you are done. Don't chase any stragglers or rares. Keep moving forward.

Do Uul-Netol first, probably more than once, before you try Chayula. Once you are able to keep Uul-Netol's timer above 30 sec, then you are ready for Chayula.

The bosses are pushovers and die easily. It's all about clearing the trash fast enough.

Elder Guardians

Spoiler

Each guardian uses the same abilities, but they have 3 different arenas each, chosen at random, and those arenas have different environmental hazards. Their damage scales with the map tier where they spawn.

Purifier
Deals physical damage and summons animated weapons similar to Daresso's. Nothing serious as long as you get near him quickly. In high tiers use Basalt flask to be more safe. After he dies, get away from the animated weapons, they continue to deal damage for a few sec.

Enslaver
Deals physical and fire damage. Some of his ranged attacks can be dangerous, make sure to get near him quickly.

Constrictor
Deals physical and poison damage, applies slowing debuffs. Constantly moves to and away from the player. Stand still and use Spell Cascade instead of CE. Ignore everything he does and keep casting Icestorm to cover the space between you and him.

Eradicator
Deals pure lightning damage and has an invulnerability phase. The arenas also deal lightning damage. This is the only dangerous Guardian, because of the invulnerability. He turns into a ball and roams around while continuing to do some attacks and spawning adds, and the room mechanics keep going on. Kill the adds and dodge the room hazards while this is going on. Cast Icestorm on him when he's attackable. Bring a couple of Topaz flasks and run Purity of Lightning instead of HoA (swap out Chaos golem).

The Elder has several attacks:
1. Melee hit. Weak.
2. Salvo of 'ice shard' projectiles dealing considerable cold damage. These can shotgun and freeze you. Used only at range.
3. Summon tentacles that do AoE physical hits around them.
4. Expanding 'Circle of Doom' that deals massive physical damage after 10 sec, with a safe zone at its center.
5. Snowflake Slam: spins around dropping 'snowflakes', then teleports to you and does a massive cold hit. Targets your position at the end of the 'snowflakes' animation.
6. Siphon Slow: slows you by 80%, deals physical damage over time in an arc in front of the Elder while regenerating 20% ES per second.
7. Petrification: similar to the Siphon, but a 100% slow (i.e. stops you completely). After several seconds, the Shaper appears behind the Elder and hits him, ending the animation.

Adds spawn around the room every N seconds. Some of them (big octopuses) drop gray patches of physical degen if they live long enough.

The fight has 3 phases:
1. The Elder is free to move and use his attacks at random. Bringing him to 75% forces the Siphon attack. At 50% he does the Petrification. At 40% the second phase begins.
2. The Elder is bound in the middle of the arena. The Shaper moves between the 4 sides of the room, staying at each side for 35 sec. Null Portals spawn and produce adds that attack the player and the Shaper. This phase ends when the Shaper completes his animations, or when the adds kill the Shaper.
3. If you don't let the adds kill the Shaper, the Elder remains bound and can only summon the tentacles and do the Circle of Doom. Otherwise the Elder regains full freedom. You have to kill the Elder. If you don't fail to protect the Shaper in the second phase, Zana appears in the room and pops her red protective bubble. Stand near her. The Elder explodes and extra loot drops, including a chance of the Watcher's Eye.

Strategy:
Swap Arctic Armour for Purity of Ice and bring a Sapphire flask. Get near the Elder and facetank him while casting Icestorm. If he does the Snowflakes animation, use the Sapphire flask. After the Siphon and Petrification, the 2nd phase will begin.

If you have the swap staff with Spell Cascade, switch to it for the portal phase to kill adds and portals faster, otherwise just kill them the best you can with the boss staff.

In the 3rd phase, switch back to the boss staff and finish off the Elder. Move to the safe area inside the Circle of Doom. When he reaches 0 life, move to Zana.

In this encounter you fight against the Elder and the Shaper at the same time. They use the same abilities as in their solo fights and exchange invulnerability with every phase. The Shaper keeps randomly teleporting between the 4 ends of the X-shaped arena and using his ranged attacks - this is the single most difficult aspect of the battle. Shaper 'balls of ice' spawn and chase you, turning into Vortexes on the ground if they touch you. Elder adds spawn and drop patches of decay (physical degen) if they live long enough.

Until the middle portal phase (P6) the Shaper uses only the Ball Barrage and the Beam attacks. After P6 he starts to also use Teleport Slam, but only when he is not invulnerable.

The Elder uses only the projectile attacks and melee hits while he is invulnerable. When he is vulnerable, he can use the Circle of Doom, the Siphon Slow (from 75% down), the Tentacles and the Snowflake Slam (from 50% down).

Flasks:

Quicksilver is for the Siphon Slow, Basalt is for the big physical hits (Tentacles, Shaper Slam, Circle of Doom) and in case you get frozen, Sapphires with movement speed are for when you need to re-position (when the Shaper teleports or a new phase starts).

Minor power:
Yugul (upgraded). There is a lot of cold damage in this fight.

Gem swaps:
Replace Arctic Armour with Purity of Ice.
Take out both golems and add Increased Duration (20/20) to the CWDT - Immortal Call link.

Jewel swap (optional):
Replace the jewel below the Scion start with The Vigil to get 36 sec Fortify duration from Vigilant Strike.

Strategy:

This fight is not like any other fight in the game for this build, because of the invulnerability and the teleporting Shaper constantly firing his Ball Barrages at you. You can't stand and facetank that. The balls do too much damage, leech target disappears often and needs to be re-acquired. You must dodge the Shaper's attacks and pay full attention to him. He is the main enemy, the Elder is just a nuisance.

The Shaper always fires directly at your location when you are the only target, it's easy to get into the good rhythm dodging his barrages. However, if there are other targets in the room, he might fire at them and catch you moving wrong way while you expect him to target your old location. This is why you need to take out the golems.

Invulnerable boss cannot be damaged but can be hit. Vigilant Strike, Orb of Storms, ES gain on hit from the jewel - all that works.

At the start: pre-stack Icestorms on the Elder. When Zana says 'Do something!' pop Sapphire and Basalt flasks and cast Orb of Storms. When the Elder becomes targetable hit him with Vigilant Strike.

Cast Icestorm on the vulnerable boss and move about slightly to dodge the Shaper's attacks. Try to stay near the center of the arena. This reduces the amount of movement, makes it easy to see where the Shaper teleports to and lets you avoid some of the icy balls that spawn at the edges of the room and can't 'see' you from there. Staying there also lets you cover the center with consecrated ground that drops with you hit anything and be immune to freeze, otherwise the Elder can sometimes freeze you with a lucky projectile hit.

Hit something with Vigilant Strike once per phase to keep Fortify up all the time. Recast Orb of Storms every 8-10 sec to gain massive DPS bonuses from AS and EO. Use Sapphire flasks when the current target teleports or becomes invulnerable and you need to get a new target.

When the Elder starts the Circle of Doom animation, you have 10 sec before it explodes. Finish your current action and then move to the safe area if you can. If that's not easy, use a Basalt flask. The Circle does about 9k raw physical damage, you can survive it.

When you see the Elder dive into the ground (this starts the Siphon Slow animation), pop the Quicksilver flask and move behind him.

When the Elder spins up and starts dropping the 'snowflakes' - pop a Sapphire flask and keep moving about (you need to dodge the Shaper anyway). The radius of the Elder's slam is very small, it's very unlikely to hit you, and it's only about 4-5k damage with the flask.

If you see the Tentacles - pop the Basalt flask immediately. Immortal Call will protect you for the first 0.8 sec, and then the flask should be up.

When you see the Shaper doing his Teleport Slam animation - either Flame Dash away or pop a Basalt flask. It does about 6k damage with the flask.

Vortexes and decay ground won't hurt you as long as you leech from something. But you still don't want to have a lot of them near the center of the room. Try to make the vortex balls land near the edges and kill the adds when you have time.

If you die and have to re-enter the arena, you have 10 sec invulnerability until your first action.

When you get to the final phase (after the last portals, both bosses vulnerable at 25%): start using the Sapphire flasks constantly, pop Orb of Storms near the Elder for constant EO, cast an Icestorm or two on the Elder to have a stationary leech source, and concentrate on the Shaper. When the Shaper dies, go to the Elder and faceroll him - without the Shaper he can't really hurt you anymore, you can facetank everything he does.

You can find most fossils around depth 100, no need to go deeper for that. The Watcher's Eye with ES gain on hit is amazing for fossil farming. With it you can cast Icestorm on invulnerable monsters in the dark, and it will heal you while you run around collecting fossils/resonators.

From depth 270 down, trash monsters are lv 83 (T16) and they do increasingly more damage. Farming depths 270+ can be very rewarding (especially the city areas), but the amount of damage there can be very brutal depending on the area mods.

While clearing to the next camp, do not stop in one spot for longer than it takes to cast 1-2 Icestorms. Keep moving. Flame Dash often, especially when you see packs of cockroaches or rare Turongs. Don't bother waiting for the rares to die, they are not worth it.

Upon reaching a camp, stand in the middle and cast Icestorm all around you. Spell Cascade should be used for everything except the bosses.

Dangerous enemies

Spoiler

Unstable Weta, a.k.a 'exploding cockroaches'. They are very fast, have very little life, and they explode with Cold Snap: a blue crystal spike that deals instant cold damage + cold damage over time. Single spike is not too bad, but a pack of them rushing you and dying at the same time can 1-shot you.

Turong, a.k.a 'that thing with the tail'. These have massive amounts of life and take much longer to kill than any other trash. They shoot projectiles from the tail that deal instant fire damage + massive ignite. Make sure your Str is higher than Dex, so that Cyclopean Coil protects you from ignite.

Ice balls that spawn at the end of the Azurite encounter: they like to teleport to you and shoot a lot of icicles when they die. Watch out for them and move away when you see them on top of you. They may be hard to see in the Icestorms, but if you have enemy life bars showing then you can recognize them - they have a LOT of life and take a while to kill.

The Bosses

Spoiler

All 3 bosses deal physical base damage. This makes extra elemental damage mods very dangerous. One such mod can turn the encounter from trivial to rippy.

All bosses have a darkness phase at 50% where they go inactive for 45 sec, the arena goes dark and random trash spawns.

Abilities:
1. A large blood ball appears in the air and falls slowly. Move if there are rippy mods, otherwise ignore it.
2. A thin golden donut followed by a 'skull' explosion, creates a patch of phys degen ground for 5 sec. Move, don't stand on it.
3. Several small blood balls appear in the air. Watch out for #4.
4. A thin golden donut followed by the blood balls shooting massive phys damage projectiles at you and disappearing. This is the single most dangerous part of the fight. If there are blood balls in the air, and the boss does the golden donut - start running around, do not get hit by those projectiles.
5. A large red circle with some area damage. Ignore it.

There are 4 pyramids in the corners of the room. They light up and shoot rotating phys damage lasers. They are easy to dodge and don't hit the center of the room. They can also be deactivated by stepping on red circles behind them.

During the darkness phase at 50%, red lights appear on the 4 pads in the middle. Stand there and kill adds around you. No need to use flares.

Abilities:
1. Small green crystals pop on you and explode, green beams fire from above. Move if there are rippy mods, otherwise keep casting on the boss and outleech the damage.
2. Thin green laser beam originates from the boss and travels between crystals around the room. The beams between the crystals remain active for some time. Don't stand in them or walk through them.
3. Slow animation, buzzing sound, Kurgal levitates up and fires a thick green laser beam at you, dealing massive phys damage. This is his single most dangerous ability. Run from it.
4. Big green crystalline obelisks appear in the fixed 4 spots, with green circles near them. Watch out for #5.
5. Very slow animation, Kurgal waves his arms and explodes the obelisks for big phys damage in the green circles. The damage areas are larger than the circles, they include the outer 'hair' on them. This is hard to avoid if all 4 obelisks are up, but you can provoke Kurgal to explode the obelisks when there are less than 4 of them up. Stand near one of the obelisks and he will start this animation, then move away.

During the darkness phase at 50%, crystals around the room randomly light up. Move near them while killing adds. No need to use flares.

When Kurgal reaches 0% he heals to 100% and starts the Empowered phase:
1. Crystals in the room turn pink and shoot moving laser beams for phys+chaos damage. Can ignore them and keep casting on Kurgal.
2. Kurgal shoots two massive pink beams from his arms and brings them together aiming at your location, followed by a 1-shot blast. Move!

Not rooted, moves around. Massive phys damage 75% converted to cold. Extra elemental damage mods are very rippy as they add damage based on the initial pre-conversion phys damage, but you can't afford a second Purity aura for them. You must use Purity of Ice already. Bring flasks depending on the elemental mods, at least some Sapphire ones.

There are 8 crystalline cocoons around the circular arena. If you get near them, they open up and shoot exploding ice crystals at you. If they get destroyed by Aul's shield clones (see below) they turn into short range turrets shooting icicles and produce areas of icy ground near them with cold damage over time and powerful chill effect.

Abilities:
1. Strong melee hits. Blinding Aul is a good idea.
2. Hard hitting Whirling Blades, if you are not in melee range. Face tank him.
3. Icy projectile novas. Icicles appear in a semi-circle or full circle around Aul and shoot outwards for massive cold damage. They start flying from a very short distance from Aul but standing right on top of him is safe.
4. Aul goes 'Arrrrrrr!' and creates a circular area with randomly placed icy dots that explode for 1-shot damage 1 sec later. One of the dots always appears under Aul. Move to dodge them, then get back to Aul.
5. Several icy meteors fall around the arena. Ignore them, stay with Aul.
6. Aul becomes untargetable (the target box disappears), moves to a raised pillar in the center of the room and shoots 5-7 shield charging clones at you that produce frost walls in their path. If a clone hits a cocoon, the cocoon is destroyed (see above). Watch closely for the start of this animation. If you see Aul's target box disappear, move away immediately! He often performs 1-2 more melee/projectile attacks after becoming unhittable when you can't leech from him. The clones are aimed at you. Try to avoid being directly between Aul and the cocoons. You need to move to dodge the clones, but don't run in a full circle, the frost walls will stop you. Then get back to Aul.
7. If 4 or more cocoons were destroyed, Aul will do a long animation where those cocoons shoot crystals at him (that freeze you if they hit you) and Aul turns into a machine gun with massive cold damage. Pop anti-freeze flasks and run like hell! Better yet, prevent this from happening by not destroying cocoons.

During the darkness phase at 50%, light crystals spawn in the middle of the room, aggro on you in a small radius and explode into spots of light. You don't need to use flares. Stay in the middle and kill adds. (Unless you are doing the challenge to avoid the light crystals; then stay at the edge of the room and use flares).

Deep Delve Setup

Spoiler

I use a super defensive, HC style, setup for depths 300+. Second curse (Temporal Chains) is worth using there, as well as The Vigil, Gruthkul, longer Immortal Call and lv 20 golems.

Skill tree:Lv 91 tree - replace Trickery with Whispers of Doom to obtain the second curse.

Gems:
- replace Blind with Temporal Chains in the chest link;
- move Blind to the Orb of Storms link instead of Flame Dash;
- replace Flame Golem with Increased Duration;
- replace lv 12 Chaos Golem with lv 20 one;
- replace CWDT lv 10 with lv 20 in the golem/IC link;
- if you don't have an extra socket (an Unset ring), you will need to take out Ancestral Call Support and be more precise with Vigilant Strike;
- make sure that your Str is higher than your Dex! Turong Ignites really hurt.

Auras:
- use Purity of Fire/Ice/Lightning instead of Herald of Ash in areas that have extra elemental damage. A white socket is extremely useful for this purpose. You can get one on a corrupted Unset ring or a fossil-crafted rare. Otherwise you have to replace something useful for PoI (TC or Blind) and PoL (Chaos Golem).

Jewels:
- put The Vigil into the socket below the Scion start; it gives you a 35 sec Fortify, keep it up at all times.

Pantheon:
- use Gruthkul (upgraded) as your minor power.

Flasks:

Depending on the area mods and your fast fingers, you want to use as many flasks for extra mitigation as you can.

Just for clarification (maybe i'm wrong, not sure if it was changed, but in past was so) - i'm not sure that you can group fire penetration and "lowering resistance of the enemy" as one thing.
Penetration is always active and do its job, while lowering resistance can be useless if enemy have more resistance than capped.

For example, if enemy have 100% resistance, then his actual res will be 75% due to cap. But damage calculation will be somewhat different.
first, his resistance will be lowered by our 24% from SR, and it will make it 76%. Then resistance cap will actualize it into 75%. And after all that we have our penetration which will bring it to 59% resistance.
Basically, exactly how our characters can just ignore elemental weakness curse by having additional 30%+ resistances.
Results will be that lowering res from SR will not play any role at all, but penetration will play it's role regardless of how much over the cap resistance enemy have.

Just for clarification (maybe i'm wrong, not sure if it was changed, but in past was so) - i'm not sure that you can group fire penetration and "lowering resistance of the enemy" as one thing.
Penetration is always active and do its job, while lowering resistance can be useless if enemy have more resistance than capped.

For example, if enemy have 100% resistance, then his actual res will be 75% due to cap. But damage calculation will be somewhat different.
first, his resistance will be lowered by our 24% from SR, and it will make it 76%. Then resistance cap will actualize it into 75%. And after all that we have our penetration which will bring it to 59% resistance.
Basically, exactly how our characters can just ignore elemental weakness curse by having additional 30%+ resistances.
Results will be that lowering res from SR will not play any role at all, but penetration will play it's role regardless of how much over the cap resistance enemy have.